The SAT Still Measures What Matters
The SAT has been called many things. Too consequential. Too stressful. Too long. But in its 100-year history, no one ever called it easy. But lately, a claim that the…
Posts tagged with
“standardized testing”
An Unfair Leg Up at Carolina
Admission to UNC-Chapel Hill is extremely competitive. Last year, 73,192 hopeful students applied to be new Tar Heel undergraduates. Only 5,624 eventually joined UNC as either first-year or transfer students.…
The SAT’s Trust Fall
As the policy director for the Classic Learning Test (CLT), I’ve had dozens of conversations with lawmakers across the country about college entrance exams over the last year. Surprisingly, the…
Is Standardized Testing Good or Bad?
Should colleges and universities—especially those regarded as elite—use the scores students earned on standardized tests in making admissions decisions? That has been a heated subject of debate for several decades.…
The Classroom Must Change
Despite strong market signals that they will continue to fail financially and/or fall short of achieving their missions, few U.S. universities have tried grading reform as a means of attracting…
Blueprint for Reform: Teacher Preparation
Blueprint for Reform: Teacher Preparation critiques the quality of instruction in schools of education. Future teachers are not being taught the essential knowledge they need to effectively teach reading and…
Comparing Apples and Oranges at UNC-Chapel Hill
How do you measure curiosity? Or kindness? Is it even possible to do such a thing? And, if so, can it be done by an admissions office that reads more…
The Great AP Score Recalibration
Average course grades tend to be lower in some college subjects than others. Engineering and the “hard” sciences, for example, retain reputations for being “harder” subjects than the humanities and…
“Smoking-Gun” Data on North Carolina ACT Scores
Earlier this year, the UNC Board of Governors approved a new system-wide admissions policy requiring standardized tests only for students whose high-school GPAs are less than 2.8. This comes after…
New Sanity on Standardized Tests
Dartmouth College announced last month that it is reinstating its mandatory-testing policy after four years of optional score submission for applicants. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, dean of admissions…